Jerry Reilly of Newton Upper Falls. Jerry moved to Newton from West Roxbury just a few short years ago, but he’s already a mover and shaker and a committed civic activist who has accomplished many truly great things for his village and for Newton. And he’s made a truckload of friends and virtually no detractors along the way with his perseverance and great sense of humor. A true Happy Warrior and a good friend to have.

— Setti Warren (for a few reasons)
— Allegations of sticky fingers against the police chief’s secy
— Allegations of smutty mouth against the police chief
— Medical maryjane
— Our willingness to vote a young man w nice hair and a familiar name into a national politics
— The Superstorm
— Ripple effects of Newtown
— The BoA’s hot air and ineffectiveness against three proposed overrides
— Renewed interest in Newton’s Charter and Women’s Voter org’s inability to take signatures on the busiest election day in decades
— Crystal Lake, the people that challenged abutters trying to keep them away and the green slime that kept them away
— Plastic bags
— Shaw’s Market tries to exercise one of it’s very few granted liquor licenses and the small store that was allowed to stomp on them because we’re Newton
— Challenges to Eliz Warren’s past ethics

Hoss, you have a great memory. Sorry that you remember all that–I’ve been trying to forget! I feel like there should be a honorable mention of Newton North because in spite of the “let it go” article we’re stuck paying for it so we might as well get to complain about it.

Newton South ranked #11 best high school in Ma according to US News World Report
Newton North ranked #36 best high school in Ma according to US News World Report
Newton #4 best places to live Money Magazine.
Newton 5th safest city in the US by CQ press.

It’s a sad reflection on the year that so many of the news makers on the TAB list were bad guys, criminals or alleged lawbreakers while many others were politicians. Surely we had, as they say in Oz, “good deed doers.” Not that I can think of any off the top of my head! (other than to second Bob’s Jerry Reilly suggestion.)

Not to take away anything from the current team, I’d propose Gail Spector’s departure from the paper of record was significant news event for Newton. The sum developments and changes along Route 9 in Chestnut Hill was newsworthy as well. The arrival of the Rox Diner and Brewers to breath new life into Newtonville could be another.

Our school system is ranked #12th in the state and we were 12th highest in Achievement scores. When you look at the margin of difference between 12 and the 11 before Newton you can’t be unhappy.
Yes, I’m happy with those numbers. That doesn’t mean I don’t think we should strive to be #1 in everything. It’s a different state than it was back in the days that Mike Striar talks about when Newton was the best at everything. There was no such thing as Dover-Sherbourne, Manchester-Essex or Wayland. Sure they existed but they were hick towns away from Boston that didn’t attract money. We are competing with so many more towns now.
What I am not is a member of the Fellowship of the Miserable which is prevalent on this blog. If all you knew of Newton was what you learned on this blog you would think this is the most miserable, failing city in the state.
I am very happy with the education my daughters are getting. I don’t think going to the #12 school system in the state is going to hinder them versus their peers at Dover-Sherbourne when it comes to opportunities.
I feel safe in Newton. I love living here and think it should have been ranked #1 in the best places to live category.
Some people are just miserable and only see the bad. Yes we can be better but we are pretty fucking good at this point.

@Greg — You make some good suggestions. Our choices were perhaps too influenced by Google Analytics — bad guys garner lots of hits. We’ll think more about business development next time. Less sure that newspaper editors belong in the news.

Kim,
You want a response, I’ll give you one. The reason why I didnt respond until now is that your comments clearly show that “you don’t get it.” The people (bloggers) that you refer to as “miserable” only care for the city, they push our elected officals for more. Without the “miserable” people on this blog, this city would still be in the 20th century.
One day, Geoff Epstein was a blogger who knew the city could do more with STEM. He got on the board and he and his supporters turned the direction of the school system around and made STEM a high priority. The “miserable” on this blog do occasionally accomplish things.
You claim Mike keeps pining for the past. we don’t have to go back 40 years to see an obvious decline in our school system. When Mike and I ran for Mayor (2005) NSHS was rated 7th in the state and NNHS was 15th. As recent as 2007 our city was rated as safest city in America with a population over 80,000. These are just facts, as are yours. If you think the city can’t do better, than thats fine….keep listening to the status quo people who run the city who are happy doing things like we have the past 20 years. People who are afraid of change. Times change and this city hasn’t kept up! Thats pure fact, not speculation. If you can’t understand that there isn’t much I can say.
The people you refer as “miserable” overlook our elected officials. If they didnt exist, our elected officials wouldn’t accomplish half of what gets done here.
The cities numbers are great if you come from and are used to a city like Somerville, but this is Newton and we expect (nay, deserve, better). When NNHS was being built THM was quoted as saying as this is the school the parents deserve…what about the education the kids deserve? If the city doesn’t live up to it’s potential, then it’s impossible for the city to make sure the kids live up to their potential.
But, you can sit idly by, allow our decline not effect you and you can go about your business. This city is more to me than where I hang my hat, it’s where I was born and raised and always come home to. This is my home. If you’re happy with those numbers thats fine, be part of the status quo, that doesn’t mean I have to.

Come on tom. You’ve got to be kidding me. Look at what really separates #1 and #12. It’s clear you haven’t looked at it. Bro, you aren’t running for office right now. You lost. Be real.
The safest city thing? We were number 1. Then we had a murder in a parking garage and in a home. The rest of us were safe. 4th in the entire country!!!!! It’s the difference of just one or two incidents. Just like with academics. One might argue that being #7 so many years ago is equal to being #12 now. You grew up here. I didn’t. I see things differently. You just want to piss and moan how we aren’t the greatest anymore when the fact is we are still pretty awesome.
Keep running your loser campaigns on the fact the sky is falling and you will continue to lose. Newton is a great city. We can get better but we don’t need malcontents like you to keep telling us how much we suck.

Kim,
I knew you still wouldn’t get it. Let me preface this response as I am not a malcontent. I love Newton, maybe I don’t say it enough, but I do. I move away, but I always come home, it’s the only city I call home. If I didn’t love this city and only want whats best for the city, we would never know each other as I wouldn’t care enough to blog, so we would never have met.
Kim, if it’s so close between 1 and 12, why not be number 1? If people dont differentiate between 1 and 12 then why have rankings at all? They do mean something. I am sure that when a kid from Newton applies to harvard today, it means a lot less to Harvard then when they did in the old days (but you dont care about that).
Let me end this post with a story. 6 years ago I lost 60 pounds. After losing the weight, I started gaining a pound here, a pound there. I said to myself, self…no problem, I can lose it back. those pounds starting coming back quicker. I gained almost everything back, except 10 pounds. Now, to get back to where I was, I have to lose another 5o pounds. It would have been a lot easier if I put a stop to it at gaining 5 or 10 pounds and thats all I would have to lose to get back to where I was.
Kim, the pounds in my story are rankings. Will you be happy if NSHS drops to 50th in the state and NNHS at 150? I mean, thats still pretty good, no? If our goal is to one day be number 1, it’s a lot easier to right the ship now then to wait until we drop out of the picture.
Also, the part you really don’t get. is that people on the blog aren’t moaning…thats the status quo labeling of the blog (malcontents, moaners, etc). The people that actually run this city (or any city), are the activists. The activists are the one’s that brng ideas to the elected officials. It’s very rare that an elected official has an original thought, it usually comes from a constituent or an activist. Lets take the greenway for example, who’s idea was that? Who did the legwork for it? What about the third rail…which hasn’t happened, yet. But it will. Charter reform? The list goes on and on. These ideas are produced by activists. This city is run by the “malcontents”. The only way that things get done is that the status quo know we’re out there watching them.

I don’t want to go too far afield on a blog thread about “The people and things that made 2012 memorable,” because I never… um, almost never… uh, only sometimes… okay, okay, ALWAYS go off topic. But I just have to chime in on this Kim vs. Tom debate.

I’ll start by agreeing with a little bit of what Kim wrote… Over the past 18 years, my 3 kids have gone through the Newton public school system. I’m obviously satisfied that they’ve received a very good education, or I would have simply pulled them out and sent them to private school. So, I’m not going to say NPS sucks, or that the students receive a crappy education. They receive a very good education, which in a lot of cases is also supplemented by some form of private tutoring. But let’s not forget that a lot of them go to school in buildings that are shit holes, and because those are elementary and middle schools that fact is not reflected in the US News & World Report rankings [of high schools], Kim referenced.

I’m going to use Kim’s other point of reference, Newton’s #4 Money Magazine ranking [as a place to live], in order to make a point of my own. If you believe that particular ranking, [and I do], imagine what would happen to our property values if our public school system was also ranked #4 nationally, rather than somewhere down the list in triple digits. That is a compelling ECONOMIC argument for substantially improving our school system. There is a direct link between home values and the quality of the local school system.

More to the point, Tom Sheff and I went to Newton public schools at a time when this system was ranked in the top handful nationally. So our frame of reference is considerably different than someone who is watching their child go through NPS today. To steal a line from Dr. King… Tom and I “have been to the mountaintop.” And once you’ve seen the world from its highest peak, it’s difficult to accept that your children will never get to experience that same view.

Make no mistake about this. Newton schools were not just a little bit better “back in the day.” They were so much better that they defy comparison to today’s Newton schools. I’m not going to get into how or why that change happened, because the reasons are numerous and too long to explore in this post. However, I can easily identify why the Newton public school system has never climbed back up that mountain, and reestablished itself as one of the best in the country. It’s not for a lack of desire, or a lack of resources. It’s simply the failure of our leadership to establish the goal of [re]building a world-class school system.

In the past 20 or so years, I cannot remember a mayor or any school committee member stating publicly, “our goal should be for Newton to have the best public school system in the country.” As we all know, you seldom hit a target by accident. So unless and until we have leadership willing to put their political necks on the line by aiming for lofty goals, we should expect to remain just about where we are, in the top 20% of school systems in Massachusetts, and nowhere to be found on the national map.

I follow what Tom and Kim are saying, but I really can’t see that much of substance that separates them. I was at the old Newton High School in the 50’s when Newton made Life Magazine for being one of the two best school systems in America. I think the other one was in Pennsylvania.
I have an article pending with the Tab and part of it describes things involving kids that were markedly different in the 50’s than they are now. In short, a lot of things were better then and a lot of things are better now. I was grateful to live in Newton at that time and I’m still grateful to be here.

As long as we’re willing to settle for very good, we will never be great again. Personally, I think that’s a darn shame, because there’s a world of difference between a good education and a great education. We all recognize that distinction at the college level, but don’t place the same emphasis on primary education. Given the intellectual and financial resources we have here in Newton, I truly believe we could [once again] have the best public school system in the country. I think that should be our goal. Just once, I’d like to hear some [any] elected official state that as an objective and lay out a plan to accomplish it.

The formula to achieving #1 status in any enterprise ultimately comes down to attracting the right people and willingness to fund their ideas. Funding infrastructure is a logical start, and we’re a few weeks from this goal. If City Hall looked like our schools (including workers lunching in the halls) we’d be ashamed to live here. Beyond presenting ourselves in appearance as a model-town, we need to feed the people that have the ideas to achieve our goals. That part concerns me more than the infrastructure part. We’ve taken schooling for granted and as a whole, residents aren’t yet sold on what needs to be done and at what long term price and growth in that price. The people’s funding model is more of a Walmart-structure than a structure of quality offerings

The Tab did the librarian accused of passive web search crimes an unintended service by grouping him with child predator Ettinger in this article. The defense lawyer can now more convincingly say that any internet mistake by the librarian was blown into a crime against a child merely by repeated press association with child predator Ettinger. Why group those two unassociated criminal events when you didn’t group the 4 or 6 bank robberies in 2012?

I’m not sure if this is germane ( I mean this) in terms of context but have Tom or Mike Striar ever lived anywhere besides Newton? In the case of Striar, he clearly is happy with his experience growing up here. He is clearly happy with his children’s experience here. So what’s the difference? What some polls say? Again, when you look that he margin of difference between Newton and the #1 City in these polls it’s basically negligible. Our city skates on a bigger pond now than when Mike Striar and Tom Sheff were here…but is the difference that big?

Come on guys. We are trying to be the best. The battles in the school committee, aldermen and electorate are the sound of people caring. Nobody is resting on their laurels. It’s a different landscape and we are doing very well.

I’ve spent 45 of the past 50 years in Newton. I have lived other places, but have not had any direct experience with another school system. While that absence of contrast may effect my opinion in some ways, I believe the best perspective is gained by comparing what we once were as a school system, to what we are now.

Using that frame of reference, I’ll give NPS letter grades. We were an “A+,” now we’re a “C+.” If you remove our history from the equation, and simply judge us contemporaneously, I’d say most indications are that NPS deserves a “B.”

When I see a “B” on my kids report card, I’m perfectly fine with that. And I can certainly understand why anyone would be perfectly fine with a B-level school system. As I wrote earlier, if I wasn’t at least satisfied with the school system, I would have moved my kids to private schools. But let me suggest it’s exactly that complacency, which has allowed NPS to slip so far down on a national scale. We have not demanded excellence, we have no plan for excellence, so we do not achieve excellence.

What is “excellence” as that term might be applied to a school system? This is where things get dicey, because my expectations may be entirely different than yours or someone else’s.

Although there were State guidelines back in the 1960’s and 70’s when I went to school, a great deal of the curriculum was formulated locally, as opposed to today, when nearly our entire curriculum is driven by state mandated, standardized testing. Let me pause on that point for a moment, by asking this question… Who would you rather trust with your kid’s education, some faceless state bureaucrats that neither of us could name, or the 8 School Committee members who we get to vote for [or sometimes against] every two years?

One would think that the answer would be the latter. Yet, it is that body’s complete lack of courage and creativity over the past 20 years that has raised my ire. Over that time we have seen a system once revered for it’s creativity and innovative programs, die a death of a thousand pin pricks. Losing along the way, countless programs that used to distinguish our community for it’s academic excellence. We have seen our classes become overcrowded, and many of our school buildings crumble before our eyes. Our greatest accomplishment was building a new NNHS, and the School Committee had little to do with the political dynamic that led to that decision.

Here’s how I look at things. If we were charged with starting a new public school system for Newton, with all rules and regulations waived, I am confident of two things.

1.] It would not take its current form.

2.] It would be one of the best public school systems in the country.

Convinced of that myself, I’ll ask you this… Given all our intellectual and financial resources in Newton, why are we settling for a “B”? I’m not suggesting the School Committee has bad intentions. And I’m not trying to cast aspersions on their character or capability. I just think that as a committee, over an extended period of time, they have demonstrated a complete lack or courage and creativity toward solving problems and establishing the correct goals for our system.

I have a problem with your reply with a grading system. You gave Newton a C+. Would you accept an arbitrary grading system by any other blogger on any other topic? There are 325 school districts in Ma. We were 12th. Whether a bell curve or flat analysis, #12 is no C+. That is an A+.

To address your concern about standardized testing and state driven mandates I say this: I believe in curriculum that is Federally mandated. I believe this because I care about children in Texas and Louisiana as well. If Newton is allowed to go way off protocol then so too, are places that want to teach intelligent design and leave out the suffragette and civil rights movements from the history books. United we stand.

With our resources we can (and do) get the most out of the current protocols.

Overcrowding of schools isn’t a function of our education system. It’s a function of poor control over development in our city. I know that is something with which you are an expert.

Kim– I don’t believe we share “the same goals for Newton Schools.” At least not the exact same goals. My goal, is for Newton to have the best public school system in the country. Is that your goal? Because I don’t understand how that would be possible using a federally mandated curriculum as you suggested.

If you use the same curriculum for every school, in every state, why would you expect Newton students to do significantly better than anywhere else? We may do marginally better, because we attract great teachers. Or, because Newton parents are on average, better educated themselves. Or, because the wealthier of those parents would continue to subsidize their kid’s education with private tutoring. But using the same curriculum over time, means getting [roughly] the same results everywhere. It lifts up the underperforming schools, and drags the overachievers down toward the middle. That’s exactly what’s happened with Newton and MCAS. I believe Newton schools would excel, if we had more local autonomy over our curriculum.

As to how I graded Newton’s public school system, that was almost entirely subjective. In our heyday though [1950’s-1970’s], I firmly believe the Newton school system deserved an “A+.”
I think that particular grade is supported by one of Bob Burke’s posts above, referencing Life Magazine’s rating of Newton schools as the second best public system in the country.

I arrived at the” C+” grade by comparing my personal experience as a student, to my observations as a parent of three students, who have gone through that same system more recently. Admittedly, completely subjective.

So I tried to be fair. I disregarded our historical record and the comparison between past and present, then gave our current system a “B.” You seem to think we warrant an “A.” Again, my analysis may be incorrect. But the problem with your analysis, is that you’re only comparing Newton schools to other schools in Massachusetts. To fairly grade our system, we would have to compare it to school systems nationally.

Regarding your point about school overcrowding. While I agree, a lack of control over real estate development has played a significant role, I also believe a lack of proper planning within the educational system is at fault. And I have to point out that the population of Newton has decreased since the days when our school system was top ranked. I had 17 kids in my 2nd Grade class, at a time when more people lived in Newton. I never had more than 23 kids in my class from 2nd-6th Grade. So I agree about the impact of development, but fault our school system for poor planning.

As far as our crumbling school infrastructure, we both agree that Prop 2 1/2 has played a very substantial role. But I believe we elect people to solve problems, not make excuses for why the problems exist. I think a majority of the blame for deteriorating infrastructure belongs with the local elected officials who failed to solve the problem.

Life Magazine excelled in photojournalism. If I may date myself, I remember looking forward to its weekly release for this very reason – a number of iconic images from the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s can be found in the old issues of this magazine. In fact, I still have the edition from the week after President Kennedy’s assassination. The photographs from Life tell a compelling story of World War II, the major events of the times, and the cultural changes over the decades.

However, Life Magazine was not an evaluator of school systems. That wasn’t its mission or its strength. I’m sure this magazine article thrilled Newton residents back in the day, but let’s keep this in perspective – there was no validity to its rankings whatsoever. If that’s what this whole “we were #1” thing is about, then it’s time for longtime Newton residents to take a realistic look at our school system.

And you can call me what you like, but I think we have a great School Committee.

Jane– Of course Newton’s reputation for excellent schools was not the result of an article in Life Magazine. Just the opposite. The article was the result of Newton’s reputation for excellent schools. Exactly like the Money Magazine article Kim referenced, and like our opinions, it was a subjective analysis.

I’m happy that you’re happy, Jane. And you’re obviously not alone. There are many people who feel Newton has an excellent school system today. I’m not here to tell them they’re wrong. I’m just encouraging another perspective. I don’t want you, Kim, or anyone else to interpret my advocacy, as a longing for days gone by. I’m not one to live in the past. I learn from the past, but I reside in the present, and always look toward the future. So, having been a student here during what’s been referred as the “Golden Era” of Newton Public Schools, I’d be a fool to have learned nothing from the experience. Just as anyone who would ignore that past, would be equally foolish for doing so.

I don’t want to recreate Newton schools of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. I want to help create the school system we have five or ten years from now. So that maybe my [future] grandchildren will be able to experience the breadth and depth of the education I am so grateful to have received.

What was it that made my Newton public school experience so wonderful? In a nutshell, it was a creative curriculum that placed a broader emphasis on a more subjects, and innovative educational programs. That curriculum field has been narrowed to an alleyway, and the innovative programming has all but entirely disappeared. I place the blame for those changes in this order, under-funding, standardized testing, and a lack of courage from a succession of school committees and mayors.

My suggestions: Increased school funding, and a dramatic expansion of educational offerings. Feel free to disagree if you like.